But the chorus of GOP members calling on him to step aside, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is growing louder.

Associated Press

Missouri Senate nominee Todd Akin appeared on Mike Huckabee's radio show Monday for his first interview since the eruption over his controversial comments on rape Sunday. Akin apologized for his comments and said he'd "spoken in error" -- and maintained that he would not drop out of the race.

Huckabee's show was a friendly choice for the congressman: The former Arkansas governor supported and cut ads for him during his contentious three-way primary contest.

Akin opened the appearance by saying he made "a couple of serious mistakes that were just wrong" and needed to apologize.

"Rape is never legitimate," said the congressman. "I used the wrong words in the wrong way."

He emphasized that he is pro-life but cares equally for rape victims. Noting that he has two daughters, he said he wants "tough justice for sexual predators."

He also said he knows "that people do become pregnant from rape," and that he didn't mean to imply that it didn't happen -- but didn't specifically address whether pregnancy was less frequent in cases of rape.

Huckabee asked him about the use of the word "legitimate" in talking about rape.

"I was talking about forcible rape, and that was absolutely the wrong word," Akin responded.

The host also asked whether the comments and resulting firestorm was fatal to his campaign, and Akin responded that he was not the first public official "to suffer from foot-in-mouth disease," though he noted that this was a serious error. But in saying his campaign would continue, he cited the primary voters who chose him, the importance of the election, and tried to bring the focus back to economic issues and the differences between himself and Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

"I'm not a quitter," said Akin. "By the grace of God, we're going to win this race." The people who elected me "know that I'm not perfect," he said. "Just because somebody makes a mistake doesn't make them useless."

He maintained that neither Mitt Romney's campaign nor the National Republican Senatorial Committee had asked him to step aside.

"No one has called me and said Todd, I think you should drop out," he said.

However, NRSC head Sen. John Cornyn has since issued a statement calling on Akin to "carefully consider what is best for him, his family, the Republican Party," and the NRSC has reportedly said it will pull funding from the race is Akin doesn't drop out. Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Scott Brown, R-Mass., have also called for him to drop out -- and the Huckabee interview is unlikely to quell the furor.

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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today.

— Deuteronomy 15: 12–15

Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation.

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During the multi-country press tour for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, not even Jon Stewart has dared ask Tom Cruise about Scientology.

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An attack on an American-funded military group epitomizes the Obama Administration’s logistical and strategic failures in the war-torn country.

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The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

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